Members of the Olds-based Wild Horses of Alberta Society (WHOAS) will be taking part in an upcoming two-day workshop in Montana regarding the possible contraceptive vaccination of free-roaming horses in the Sundre area, say officials.
“We are going down to Billings to meet up with Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick at a research centre,” said society president Bob Henderson. “He's a leader down there has used the contraceptive vaccine on the wild horse herds in Georgia and Montana.
“We will be learning about the vaccine and how to mix it and how to inject it properly. It's a vaccine that takes the mares out of cycle for one to two years.”
Asked if WHOAS has plans to administer the vaccine to the Sundre-area horses, he said, “We have two proposals before Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development and one of them is this contraceptive program. Hopefully we will hear back from them by the end of July and then we will hopefully be able initiate the contraceptive program this fall.”
If approval is given, the plan is to vaccine between 18 and 36 mares, he said.
WHOAS believes the contraceptive program would be a better way of controlling numbers than capture programs.
“We figure that with this contraceptive program and the adoption program, that it's a much more humane and efficient way of controlling the wild horse numbers. We believe that could manage the numbers effectively. It is the way to go in our society today,” he said.
The Montana workshop will take place July 15 – 17.
